Country Strong

I'm not really a country music fan at all but I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It's a superb character driven film that goes way beyond any musical persuasion. The performances are remarkable and I can see why they had to release this for awards consideration. Tim McGraw was shockingly good (he can really act!)and Gwyneth Paltrow delivers a better performance than Jeff Bridges did in his Oscar win of a year ago. (Don't get me wrong, Bridges was great but Gwyneth really brought it in this role) In fact, this film tops "Crazy Heart" by quite a large margin. You really care about these characters and events of the film really throw you because it's anything but predictable.

My wife & I went to the screening of this movie (7/15/10)not knowing a lot about it. We just knew it had country music in it. Not being country music fans we were not sure how we would like it. We both thought it was a great movie. The acting, story & music was excellent.I am not able to go into too much detail abut the movie yet. But will when the trailers are released. I believe you will enjoy this movie greatly! It is hard to compare it with other movies I have seen but I guess you would call it a Drama / romance movie. I think it will appeal to people in their 20's and up. Maybe a date movie? This movie is NOT just for people that like Country Music. As I stated I am not a Country music fan but came out thinking I would not mind owning the soundtrack. It is a must see when it comes out in Dec. You will not be disappointed

This is a decent movie but not one that I loved. The singing in the movie is top notch except for 1 or 2 of Paltrow's songs which were just okay. These are some seriously talented people. Huge surprise that Leighton Meester is a terrific singer. You might know her from Gossip Girl.

You probably already know the synopsis -- alcoholic singer goes back on the road to try and reclaim her past star status pushed along by her manager/husband. She bonds with a young male singer/guitar player who she brings along on her mini-tour who, despite the best of intentions, can't quite pull her out of her addictive cycle. Leighton Meester plays a very sympathetic and likable character who is just trying to live her dream...she's brought along on the tour by the husband/manager.

Overall, it was a depressing movie....to see someone battling addiction and how it eventually wears down the people around them to the point where they look like they are nasty (poor McGraw) when in reality they are just tired of the cycle of self-destruction.

What was entertaining and enjoyable about the movie was the songs and the concert scenes. It was a nice movie to go see on a snowy night....doubtful that I would rent it once it became available or buy it on DVD...which is kind of the benchmark for me on what is a good movie.

You won't waste your money seeing it but you'll probably wish you'd seen it at a reduced price or at the matinée if you paid full price.

As a relatively new fan of country music, I must say I was disappointed in this movie. It had its moments, but overall I cannot recommend it. The clumsy, disconnected screenplay was probably the worst aspect of the film as it gave the actors little to work with. There didn't seem to be much continuity to the film, but just a bunch of scenes thrown together. Aside from her singing the title song, there was nothing about the main character (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) that was remotely strong, and the ending was hardly inspiring in that regard. I cringed through the first half of the movie, which seemed to go overboard in portraying her flaws and failures, and wondered how much lower she would get before she turned things around. It was quite depressing, with no "payoff" at the end to make it worthwhile.

What the movie does have is some pretty good music. Paltrow, Garrett Hedlund, and Leighton Meester all sang quite well and almost made this movie worth seeing. Hedlund gave the best acting performance, and Meester wasn't bad. But I was quite disappointed in Tim McGraw's effort and feel it was the weakest of his budding career. I don't know if it was because he was playing an insensitive jerk as opposed to the nice guys of his previous roles, but he seemed strained and unnatural. And as well as Paltrow sang, and as much as I have enjoyed previous work by her, she was unconvincing in her portrayal of a country superstar (limited in part by the poor script, as noted earlier). The charisma just wasn't there.

Seeing a movie like this makes me appreciate well-written and well-acted movies all the more. They have a unifying theme that takes you somewhere and ties things together at the end (unless, of course, there is to be a sequel). "Country Strong" just didn't have what it takes, but ending up looking more like a direct-to-video film. It should have been titled "Country Pathetic."

I feel like this movie has potential to be good. The actors are obviously trying but the writer/director just doesn't deliver which completely throws off the intentions of each character. What I mean is, it's bad enough that the music is astonishingly boring, but that no character is given any development makes the movie even worse. Therefore Gwyneth Paltrow comes off as whiny because why she started drinking is never explained, Garrett Hedlund and Leighton Meester appear pretentious because they have no history to explain their on-off minor rivalry, and Tim McGraw appears to just be bossy because there's no push for him to make Gwyneth Paltrow's character a more popular star. I feel no sympathy for the characters because there is no real story behind any of them which makes the long scenes feel even longer. When something thin is being stretched out beyond it's limit, it shows by either becoming looser or ripping apart. This movie doesn't completely rip apart, but it comes terribly close (emphasis on "terrible"). I do not recommend this movie to anyone, especially country music fans.